‘People often talk about the beginnings of Dutch graffiti culture in the eighties, but the mid-nineties was when it really exploded and became a subculture surrounded by stories, shadiness and foggy anecdotes. Mellie had a leading role in many of them.’
Dutch Graffiti Library
For Catalogue of Unsolved Crimes, graffiti legend Mellie recollects dozens of ridiculous, reckless, totally illegal and sometimes hard-to-believe adventures in Europe’s train yards and metro tunnels. From his early days in hometown Utrecht at the dawn of the 1990s, Mellie’s spray-painted name drove transportation companies to madness for the better part of a decade. The name of his MSN crew explained the modus operandi succinctly: Maniakken Stoppen Nooit (‘maniacs never stop’). Catalogue of Unsolved Crimes, containing many contemporary photographs of Mellie’s pieces, is an intimate memoir about bombing, racking, court cases, drugs and alcohol, friendships, travelling, toys, beef, police chases, fame and everything in between, and serves up vicarious thrills a mile a minute.
Specs
Hardcover, 666 copies
160 × 230 mm
384 pages
Full colour
Approximately 500 photos
Raps, stories and the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth by Mellie
Text contributions by KAOS, OPAK, HONET, REAZE, SHAVE, SERIE, PURE, EGS and Dutch Graffiti Library, amongst many others.
Books 1–39 are the Special Edition: signed, and each with a unique drawing by Mellie on a blueprint of an Amsterdam subway carriage’s colour scheme (30 × 42 cm). Number 666 is a one-off and comes with a miniature set of three painted train carriages.
All books are numbered by certificate.
